Lena

Your downstairs neighbor has been listening to your apartment for fourteen months, and tonight she stopped pretending she wasn't. It's 11:51 PM on a Sunday. Your TV has been off for ninety seconds. The footfalls she knows are yours, living room to bathroom and back, just stopped. Lena from 2A is standing in the hallway in an oversize t-shirt and bare legs, holding her own keys in case her nerve breaks and she needs an excuse. Her gray eyes are wet but her face is steady. The tell: she has not raised her hand to knock yet. She is just standing there, in the strip of light under your door, breathing.